He went among the ill,
bathing them with love and compassion. An angel of mercy, he was very
often responsible for bringing them closer to Jesus, preparing them to
meet their Savior. He tended them, placing cold cloths on their feverish
foreheads, cleaning them, gently washing their pain-wracked bodies. He
made their beds, cleaned out their bed pans. No job too menial, too
trivial, to him they were Jesus and he had an opportunity to soothe
Jesus’ Wounds, as he could not while He was alive. In this way, by
soothing their wounds, these “the least of His children,” he was
in his small way soothing the Wounds of his Lord. As was expected, the
Jesuit priests, aiding the sick and dying, also fell victims to the
plague and Aloysius nursing them, caught the death-threatening disease.

Aloysius, believing that
this was the end and he was dying, was filled with joy. This was what
the prophecy meant; this was how and when he was to die; he was soon to
be with his Jesus! Anxious to be on his way, he received his Viaticum
and was anointed. His delight was all too premature. To the amazement of
everyone, especially his own, he recovered. But the epidemic left its
scars; a low fever further crippled him; he was reduced to an invalid
barely able to lift his head. He went from bad to worse. Three months
after having been afflicted, he was confined to his bed. At night, when
he could muster enough strength, he would rise from bed, and he would
worship his Lord on the Crucifix. He would painfully shuffle from holy
picture to holy picture, kissing our Blessed Mother, all the Angels and
the Saints depicted. Then, braced between the bed and wall, he knelt and
prayed, for as long as his strength held up.

Paradise his dream, he
humbly asked his confessor and spiritual director, if it was possible
that anyone could go directly to God in Heaven, without passing through
Purgatory. St. Robert Bellarmine assured him it was not only possible,
but knowing him the way that he did, it was altogether feasible that he,
Aloysius would receive that Grace from God. With that, Aloysius fell
into a deep ecstasy that lasted through the night. It was during this
ecstasy, he was to learn that he would die on the octave of Corpus
Christi, the Feast Day of the Body and Blood of Christ, Jesus in the
Eucharist Whom he so passionately loved. On each of the eight days
Aloysius would intone the Te Deum, in thanksgiving to the Lord
for deeming it His Will that Aloysius would soon see Him.

Those with him, would at
times hear him recite, “I rejoiced when they said to me: We will go
into the house of the Lord.” At other times, he would say, “We
are going, gladly, gladly!” On the eighth day of the octave, he
looked so much better, they spoke of sending him to the town of Frascati.
But to their dismay, he pleaded to receive Viaticum, as he tried to make
them understand he would die before the morning sun. They reluctantly
complied with his wishes. When his provincial came into his room to see
how he was doing, Aloysius joyfully greeted him with, “We are going,
Father; we are going.” To which the provincial asked, “Where?”
Aloysius replied, “To Heaven.” The provincial, seeing the
great improvement in Aloysius said, “Listen to the young man. He
speaks of going to Heaven, as we speak of going to Frascati.”

Evening came. As Aloysius
was looking so well and definitely out of danger, they left him with
just a couple of Jesuits to watch over him. All the rest were relieved
of their watch and sent to bed. But at Aloysius’ insistence, St. Robert
Bellarmine intoned the prayers for the dying. The little soldier of
Christ lay still, breaking the silence with his occasional whispering,
“Into Thy Hands.” No one believed he was dying, until he suddenly
turned for the worse. It was between eleven and twelve o’clock at night,
when they noticed his labored breathing. He began to sink deeper and
deeper into the

The relics of St. Aloysius
lie under the altar in the Lancelotti Chapel of the Church of St.
Ignatius in Rome, where they can still be venerated. Miracles began to
happen immediately. In so short a time, the virtue and piety, the
holiness of this young man who lived his life with an eye on eternity,
spread to all parts of Italy, the rest of Europe and then across the sea
to the United States. Living a holy life on earth, he received
the key to eternal life with his Savior.

A word to the young and
the not-so-young, Pray to St. Aloysius for purity. He will bring you
to Sainthood.

We have just released a one hour dvd on the life of Blessed Seelos. See
article below.

Family, we must be the most blessed
servants of the Lord on this earth. He allows us to experience the most
beautiful and uplifting miracles. We returned to Louisiana last week,
where we experienced Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos. I use the term
“Experience” because we have never had the gift of seeing the power of
the following this Blessed has been given by Our Lord Jesus. His story
is fascinating, but even more fascinating is being eyewitnesses to a
following of thousands of faithful believers, taking part in a
three-times-a-year Mass and Healing Ceremony. You have had to be there
to believe how loved this priest is. For the Healing Service, which
took place after the Mass ended, there were anywhere from 1500 to 2000
people, waiting on line to be blessed. There were eight priests in four
aisles, blessing the people who waited up to an hour to receive this
special gift. And this for a priest whose life was snuffed out by
Yellow Fever after being on assignment in New Orleans for only 11
months. He has a following the likes of which you have never seen. And
hundreds of people give testimony of healings and conversions coming
about through the intercession of Blessed Seelos.

But who is this Francis Xavier Seelos,
and why is there such a great devotion to him? There are those who had
called him a living saint during his lifetime. Very few people could
have anything but great admiration and love for him. He was born in
Fussen, Germany in 1819. It was obvious to all around him, parents and
clergy alike, that this was a special child, destined to do great things
for God and for the Church. He always wanted the religious life. He
was not always sure how he wanted to serve. As a teenager, he walked
for 50 hours from his home town to Einseidlen, Switzerland to ask to
join the Benedictines there. He was refused admission, only because he
was too young. But the truth is that God had big plans for him in the
New World. He had either a vision or a locution from Our Lady, after
which he pledged to give his life to evangelizing as a missionary in the
New World. He became a member of the Redemptorist Order, and came to
the United States. Being a country boy from Bavaria, he was not very
happy when he arrived in the United States in 1843, but he wrote to his
family that he had made this decision and would live up to it. He spent
the next 24 years ministering to the people of the United States.

At first, his ministry was to Catholics
in western Pennsylvania. There were only 21 priests for 45,000
Catholics. Eventually, through the direction of St. John Neumann, who
was his first pastor in Pittsburgh, he and other German speaking priests
ministered to German-speaking immigrants. He went from associate pastor
to pastor to the rector of the seminary to the head of the
Redemptorists, back to his first love, Missionary work. During the
Civil War, years 1862-1865, he and a few other priests went up and down
the middle part of our country giving missions and retreats, dodging
bullets and the rough behavior of the soldiers on both sides of the
conflict. He appealed to President Lincoln to release the priests and
seminarians from the draft. He and another priest met with the
President, who was very cordial, but could not guarantee that this could
be done. However, none of the students were drafted.

For three years prior to his transfer to
his last parish in New Orleans, Louisiana, he was in charge of the
Redemptorist Mission Band. He and a group of other priests would travel
all over the middle states, including Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin,
Michigan, Ohio;, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island. He not only considered mission work to be important, he
wrote to his sister in 1863, “It is properly the work in the
vineyard of the Lord; it is entirely apostolic work.”

One of his greatest strengths was in the
Confessional. He reminds us of Padre Pio and St. Jean Vianney. He
would spend hours in the Confessional. He was gentle but firm. He
begged the sinners from the pulpit to come to the confessional. He said
“O you sinners who have not courage to confess your sins because they
are so numerous or so grievous or so shameful. O, come without fear or
trembling! I promise to receive you with all mildness; if I do not keep
my word, I here publicly give you permission to cast it up to me in the
confessional and to charge me with a falsehood.” He chided his fellow
priests who did not have compassion for penitents; “The priest who is
rough with the people does injury to himself….he sins, at least in
ignorance…he scandalizes all who see and hear him…Thousands reject the
Church and the Sacraments because they have been badly treated by a
priest.”

On September 27, 1866, he began his last
journey for the Lord, to New Orleans, Louisiana. As he was traveling on
the train to New Orleans, a nun asked him how long he would be stationed
in New Orleans. His reply was “I will be there for one year, and then I
will die of the Yellow Fever”, which is exactly what happened. He spent
just short of 11 months in Louisiana, and on September 17, 1867, he
caught the lethal Yellow Fever. He tried to continue with his work, but
in short order, he was incapacitated, and on October 4, 1867, he died.
But his time in New Orleans and the work he did there was enough for the
priests and parishioners of St. Mary’s Church to realize they had a
saint among them. The works he did, the kindness towards the people,
reaching out to the sick and dying, made them aware they had been given
a special gift in Francis Xavier Seelos.\

Work was immediately begun on this
Canonization, because they knew he was a Saint. And while it was
completed and sent to Rome in 1903, for whatever reason, it was not
taken up seriously until the end of the 20th century. His
burial place was even lost in the Church. When it was definite that he
would be beatified, the officials of the Church wanted to make a shrine
for him. And in the construction process, his original tomb in the
Church was uncovered. A miracle attributed to his intercession took
place in 1967, when a woman, Angela Boudreaux, who was diagnosed with a
massive malignancy in her liver, was healed. Her doctor testified that
there was no hope for her. However, within a few weeks of praying to
Fr. Seelos, she was completely healed. Pope John Paul II beatified
Francis Xavier Seelos on April 9, 2000. His is a powerful story, one
that you should take seriously. As we said at the opening of this
article, we are the most blessed, in that we were able to spend days at
his shrine, interviewing Fr. Byron Miller, Joyce Boudreaux, and many
other involved in the cause for his Canonization. We are making a
program as we speak. We pray it will be ready for our Super Saints
series in time for his Feast Day, October 5. Give yourselves a treat.
Go to the Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos in New Orleans.

You
will be blessed. We love you.

One Hour - $19.95

For
English DVD click below

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